Ant-Man
Two and a half stars (out of four)
PG-13 (sci-fi action violence)
117 minutes

Of the countless costumed superheroes Marvel has brought to the big screen, Ant-Man is one of the silliest.

A guy who wears an outfit that’s like a cross between an old-fashioned scuba suit and something out of the closet of G.I. Joe’s Cobra Commander is no match for Iron Man in the fashion department.

This is a dude who shrinks to the size of an insect and somehow that’s supposed to make him a deadly weapon. His sidekicks are six-legged creepy-crawlies he controls with his mind. He rides on the back of an ant, for Pete’s sake.

It’s kinda hard to picture him hanging with Thor and Black Widow.

Ant-Man’s early adventures include surviving a bathtub full of water and navigating a dance floor made lethal by an abundance of platform heels. Even The Cap, in all his homespun cheesiness, is far too majestic to hobnob with this would-be mini Avenger.

I say this not as a slam against Marvel’s newest and tiniest recruit, but to point out that “Ant-Man” the movie would work better if the studio just embraced the silliness and left it at that.

The signs of “Ant-Man’s” troubled production history are evident in the film’s uneven tone, which swings like a pendulum between pure, unapologetic fun and some “serious” — and seriously cliche — relationship drama.

“Ant-Man” appears to be aiming for the cool, irreverent, goofy vibe of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but what’s missing is “Guardians” director James Gunn’s precise vision.

It’s tempting to attribute “Ant-Man’s” identity issues to the dueling visions of original writer-director Edgar Wright, who shockingly left the project after almost a decade of script development, and Wright’s replacement, Peyton Reed, who primarily works in the romantic comedy genre.

No less than four screenwriters are credited with penning the flick, including Wright, “Attack the Block” director Joe Cornish, “Anchorman” director Adam McKay, and star Paul Rudd.

Marvel is fortunate to have Rudd. With his easygoing nice-guy charisma, the actor goes a long way toward making this confused comic book romp feel a little more cohesive.

That’s another issue with Marvel’s movie Ant-Man: He’s not a very interesting character.

Scott Lang is an electrical engineer fresh off a stint in San Quentin for a daring, well-intentioned cyber crime. All he wants to do is spend time with his young daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), but he’s lost custody after failing to pay child support.

(Poor Judy Greer pops up as exactly the kind of no-nonsense, anxious mom she portrayed earlier this summer in “Jurassic World.”)

After losing a thankless job at a popular dessert chain — in what has to be one of the weirdest product placement stunts ever — Scott attempts one last score, breaking into the house of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), scientist, tech company founder and discoverer of the mysterious “Pym Particle.”

Scott cracks the safe, absconds with a seemingly worthless helmet and leather suit, and soon learns he’s been recruited by Pym to retrieve a piece of dangerous, stolen technology from Pym’s former protege, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll).

At this point, “Ant-Man” bogs down in exposition detailing the history and properties of Pym’s strange, black and red suit. Scott’s initiation into its uses, and his subsequent tutorial on how to ally himself with various species of his namesake insect, play like something out of another Disney property, the 1989 Rick Moranis comedy, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”

The special effects are great, but there’s little at stake in the film’s early action sequences.

While Rudd does his best to endear us to Scott and his ant-colony cronies, Douglas and Evangeline Lilly are stranded in suffocatingly obvious scenes of father-daughter discord. Lilly plays Pym’s emotionally distant daughter, Hope, and is saddled with the same dominatrix-style bob worn by Bryce Dallas Howard in “Jurassic World.”

This leaves plenty of opportunity for Michael Pena to virtually pick up the movie and run away with it. As Scott’s ex-cellmate, Luis, the actor presides over a zany, if stereotypical, Greek chorus of criminal types who specialize in reviving the film whenever it shows signs of expiring.

I suppose the simplicity of “Ant-Man” could be considered refreshing after the complicated pomp and circumstance of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Aside from a few references to “Ultron,” a cameo by one of the lesser Avengers, and a prologue featuring some famous S.H.I.E.L.D. alumni, “Ant-Man” remains relatively unentangled by Marvel’s sticky web of intrigue.

Oddly, it’s in the last 20 minutes or so that the movie hits its stride in a hilariously hair-brained finale involving a private jet, The Cures’s “Disintegration,” a bug zapper, Thomas the Tank Engine and several other inspired elements that capitalize on the shrinkage and expansion possibilities of Pym’s amazing particle.

If only the entire film was this peculiar.

Photo: es.gizmodo.com